This Advent season we have asked a few of our Omaha staff members to share their reflections on Advent. This first reflection is by Silas West who serves in the Community Care Center. He just celebrated his twelfth year serving at Word Made Flesh. Husband to Kimberly and father to four great kids, Silas loves well, encourages growth and celebrates joy.
Trust that God arrives in the least likely places in our lives…
At my desk sit two little yellow rubber ducks. One is clean and looks like new. The other is scuffed and worn and has been marked up by one of my children. Their contrast is obvious. The clean one is the “yeah duck,” and the dirty one is the “yuck duck.” These two little ducks, my “par-a-ducks,” are reminders to me that two seemingly contradictory realities can be true at the same time—the definition of “paradox.”
Sometimes it’s the very things that cause us the most pain and discomfort—the things we fight so hard against—that are the greatest gifts. In the book Pain: The Gift Nobody Wants, authors Yancy and Brand write of how the disease of leprosy kills the nerves, causing pain and leading to the further destruction of the body. The pain of a blister causes us to shift our weight and avoid further damage to a sensitive area of our foot when walking. A victim of leprosy would walk on that sensitive point without any pain until it becomes an open wound vulnerable to infection and, eventually, at risk for amputation. Pain, something we so desperately avoid and medicate against, is the greatest gift to the victim struggling with leprosy.
In Song of Songs chapter 5 we read of the beloved rushing to the door, hands dripping with myrrh, anticipating her lover on the other side, only to discover that he had gone. In her quest to find him, she underwent the greatest pains—beatings, rejection and loneliness. In her despair, she had the courage to praise hoer lover’s virtues. In the next chapter, she spoke of the joy and affection she felt at the thought of her lover—the paradox of suffering. It was here, in her moment of adoration against all hope, that he came to her.
I am in the midst of a painful situation. Relationships are at stake, my integrity being questioned. I am undone. Can I trust that God arrives in the least likely place in my life? In this season of advent, can I trust in the paradox that my pain is my greatest gift? I live in that paradox where my deepest yearnings hope for Him while my pain doubts.
The light shines in the darkness… and has made His dwelling among us. Praise be to God who arrives in the least likely places of our lives.